Rightist Feathers and Zen Venn: The Nazi Inside

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Nov 4, 2019.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Joke | Not Joke: There's a joke that goes with this click that isn't a joke. (Cartoon by Matt Bors)

    We'll start off with a question of ad hominem, since it has been a subject of consideration around Sciforums, lately. Consider, please:

    Once upon a time↗, I happened to make the point that the question of whether it is okay to "punch a Nazi" is only complicated if we are determined to make it so.

    • Then again, someone did ask, and it's easy to note circumstantial complications.

    • To the other, the inquiry came from a known appeaser of supremacism.​

    The question of appeasement can be said to arise for particular reasons, it's true, and here we approach the question of ad hom. It is entirely possible, as a discussion progresses, that the appeasement sympathy becomes particularly relevant. Meanwhile, do we discount or dismiss the question simply because of the history of an individual who asks? In this case, the question of punching a Nazi was inevitable, as someone just had, and, moreover, as I happened to mention to staff fellows a year and a half ago: The particular corrollary of Godwin's Law, asserted about winning and losing arguments, becomes volatile when a movement includes actual Nazis. I know. Damnedest thing.

    †​

    Meanwhile, there is Milo, and if the one-time rightist golden boy happens to be complaining of dire straits↱, of being canceled and deplatformed and silenced, well, we should probably take a moment to recall when historian Angus Johnston↱ reminded of Yiannopoulos' fascistic flirtations, "It's not just his passwords. It's the Nazi buddies, the Nazi jewelry, the seig-heiling, the 1488 hand-wringing, the memes—and yes, using Nazi in-jokes as your passwords in the context of the rest of that."

    And if you take the moment to ask what that has to do with anything, right now, well, the Twitter summary↱ explains: "Milo just uploaded leaked audio of Richard Spencer reacting to the death of Heather Heyer and the negative press it did to his movement."

    And, sure, it's Milo begging for attention, but, still. A transcript of the audio attributed to Richard Spencer:

    We are coming back here, like a fucking hundred times. I am so mad. I am so fucking mad at these people! They don't do this to fucking me. We're going to fucking ritualistically humiliate them! I am coming back here every fucking weekend if I have to. Like, this is never over. I win! They fucking lose! That's how the world fucking works! Little fucking kikes! They get ruled by people like me. Little fucking octaroons, I fucking—my ancestors fucking enslaved those little pieces of fucking shit! I rule the fucking world! Those pieces of shit get ruled by people like me. They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them! That's how the fucking world works. We are going to destroy this fucking town.

    There is a holy shit sort of moment about it, but, hey, we already knew this guy was a Nazi.

    †​

    We might consider a suggestion that identifying as a Nazi is pretty much an inherent threat to anyone around a person who isn't a Nazi, which note arose in the context of someone having actually sucker punched Richard Spencer in January, 2017. Or as the aforementioned Twitter summary of the audio release reminds: "Just in case there was any question of the so-called 'dapper white nationalist' being a raged fuelled hateful monster."

    †​

    We should note, however, the one Supreme Court Justice who knew "separate but equal" wasn't going to work also happened to be a former slave owner, and though the Plessy was formally revoked a day shy of fifty-six years later, the underlying One-Drop Rule that fretted so about octaroons and even hexadecaroons, was enforced in my lifetime, which began nineteen years after Brown wrecked the doctrinal foundation of twentieth century white-supremacist segregation.

    †​

    And back in our Sciforums once upon a time, the question of another advocate's posture arose, such that I also had occasion↗ to wonder, "People can argue all they want about the difference between tapping canteloupe and the fighting words threshold, but is [a particular pretense of] ignorance genuine or just a troll façade?"

    That occasion is worth recalling because part of the question about whether it's proper to punch a Nazi is invested in what sort of Nazi whatnot the Nazi is doing, and throughout a tinge of the inherent threat toward others that comes with abiding explicitly antisocial dogma colors people's perceptions.

    It is one thing to consider abstract questions, but the pretenses of ignorance required to actually defend Nazis in general really ought not be required; there is only so much we can defend a Nazi against in particular.

    Richard Spencer, for instance: Yep. Them's fightin' words. The only reason he can hide behind any pretense to the other is the number of people who need him to tell off the fucking kikes and octaroons. No, really, Spencer's outburst isn't surprising. That it's recorded isn't surprising. That Milo would release it now, while begging for attention, isn't surprising.

    †​

    And it's true the whole Godwin corollary falls apart when actual Nazis are so central to the discussion. But it does highlight a concomitant circumtance:

    • The question of punching a Nazi depends on what the Nazi does. Meanwhile, a Nazi who complains of feeling unwelcome because so many people seem to be simply waiting for an excuse needs to either shut the hell up and learn to deal with it for having put particular effort into signaling inherent danger, or else stop going out of the way to get attention.​

    It is a common lament among supremacists that many disrespect the equal right to be superior to everyone else, but those complaints are either willfully deceptive or dysfunctionally ignorant, though such pathways are not necessarily exclusive of one another. And this is why people who don't think they're Nazis, and would certainly never identify as a Nazi—(they even have Jewish friends, and black friends, too!)—don't get why their poor regard for women, or willing acceptance of obvious supremacist tropes about nonwhites, nonchristians, &c., stand out in the perceptions the people these dangers most directly threaten. And, honestly, when those people use the same lines for the white supremacism they resent any suggestion of as they do their own—and always justified in their eyes—male supremacism, yes, there is a reason others perceive overlap.

    Behaviorally, this isn't a slippery slope question, but, rather, one of aspiring sympathy. Indeed, birds of ominous feather will, in sympathy, eventually gather together.

    †​

    It's true one need not sucker-punch a Nazi; it doesn't really help anything.

    To the other, those who would fret and wring on behalf of Nazis are not necessarily wrong to do so in particular extraordinary contexts, but it's also true there is no reason to be surprised by the Spencer's words. Pretending tabula rasa in order to pretend fairness for Nazis is taking a side. There is history, here, which tells tales particular and general, individual and collective.

    Remember, we need not discount the question simply because we disdain the underlying sympathy and identify the querient thereby; at the same time, there is no need for pandering to such excrement.

    Spencer's words are rough, but the fact that he said it and the attitudes it outlines ought not surprise anyone. Supremacists have been telling us for years.

    Pretending we didn't know is not an appropriate ritual for coming about to the proverbial right side of history, so skip it, and leave such pretenses for those who would demand history come to, and kneel before, them.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    @atheist_cvnt. "Milo just uploaded leaked audio of Richard Spencer reacting to the death of Heather Heyer and the negative press it did to his movement. Just in case there was any question of the so-called 'dapper white nationalist' being a raged fuelled hateful monster. Explicit warning." Twitter. 4 November 2019. Twitter.com. 4 November 2019. http://bit.ly/2Ng8QJS

    @studentactivism. "It's not just his passwords. It's the Nazi buddies, the Nazi jewelry, the seig-heiling, the 1488 hand-wringing, the memes—and yes, using Nazi in-jokes as your passwords in the context of the rest of that." Twitter. 8 March 2018. Twitter.com. http://bit.ly/2PI45uh

    Kelleher, Patrick. "Milo Yiannopoulos has reportedly sold his website after saying he's struggling to put food on the table". Pink News. 14 October 2019. PinkNews.com. 4 November 2019. http://bit.ly/34ruqkk
     
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  3. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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  5. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    pop-sci-psychol level passing thought...

    the soiled bedsheets of US cultural liberal appeasement with no moral code ... ?

    ... "if it is ok for gay people to get married then everything must be ok" ...
    the philosophical base moral judgement of the indoctrinated power & authority corrupt conservative christian

    [the meaning is not always interpreted by the viewer & sometimes if not often, their own meaning is supplanted in as moral social culture code speak jargon which pays liberal lip service to stereo type quasi xenophobic grouping of cultural norms]
    "Grasping the Bull by the Horns"

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    fyi
    Milo(the wanna-be Borat with no social intellect) looks like a functional sociopath with bi-polar disorder that plays out as a borderline narcissistic process as he goes into mania.
    he looks like he has a regular cycle of mania every few months and goes on mania benders attacking peoples personal spaces and private zones as he fights out against his own sociapathic disorder in a bi-polar mania state.
    i think he is liable to kill himself eventually doing something like throwing himself in front of a buss or such like thinking the buss should stop for his ego & reality unless he over doses on medication first as he goes into a depressive swing and takes too many uppers & downers and alcohol at once.
    he looks like he would be great at theater if he could control the borderline personality issue and the possible behavioral induced sociopath.
    behaviorally catalyzed un treated schizophrenia might kill him first as he takes some drug and jumps off a building.
    i just hope he does not have a driving license
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2019
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  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    No, the whole bit about rolling on women and black people in hopes of peeling off eighty thousand angry supremacists in three states.

    Sanders and Perez sounded bad enough at the time, and the whole post-bern vent against the "identity politics" of saying no to inequality sounds even worse these few years later as the right wing has driven the point so consistently over the period: We couldn't have sacrificed enough women, or black males, or, it turns out, Puerto Ricans, to satisfy them. Or Muslims. Or Latinx.

    Notice, though, those who already knew aren't dancing in the streets to celebrate their perspicacity.
     
  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    i get your point
    slight clarification on my post which you probably have already mused
    cannon fodder pre conditioning with false liberalism couched in extremist appolagism defined as middle of the road
    with deliberate authoratative vacuous moral code to allow swap n match for extremist ideology

    any xenophobic stereo type thrown under the buss gives traction when the fascist is the modelled leader

    neo-liberallism(tea-party-alt-right-xenophobes) says your allowed to be racist if you want to because that is the only way to be a true liberal
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    You're not wrong, it's just more complicated than any of us can explain.

    The first part is an empowerment question; people seek to exert influence over the world outside them; this also involves fears that arise from uncertainty. One easy example is the Gay Fray, in which people were frightened by questions about a potential they did not comprehend and thus opposed, despite the emerging observable results that the very questions their fear gave voice to were unfounded.

    But wrapped up in that Christianism is very strong selfish inclination. I described the phenomenon, once, in a blog post, as "one for you, more for me"↱, explaining:

    A major component of the spectacle is something we might otherwise describe as childish except for the fact of insulting children by doing so. The various modes of Christian identity, nationalism, and supremacism share a common aspect, an underlying dualism that, while present throughout our society―indeed, it is one of the most prominent contributions of our Christian heritage in these United States―stands out in sharp relief under certain circumstantial coincidences. And, to be certain, we have a demonstrative occasion. Consider what happens when this brand of Christianity invokes dualism, a word here meaning constriction to binary opposition:

    Multifaceted: To share equally, you count, "One for Christian, one for Jewish, one for Muslim, one for Hindu, one for atheist, &c."

    Identity dualism: To share equally, you count "One for Christian, one for Jewish; one for Christian, one for Muslim; one for Christian, one for Hindu; one for Christian, one for atheist, &c."​

    Or the simple summary: While most recognize diversity according to its many components, there are only two in the Christian supremacist paradigm―Christian and everybody else.

    I used to make the point that equal protection does not apply to numbers, because apparently some people↱ couldn't—and still can't—figure that part out. This was a point that might seem strange until we start accounting for the prospect that, "if it is ok for gay people to get married then everything must be ok". The gay marriage argument looked at the concept and shape of marriage and claimed its place against sex discrimination; the idea that polygamy must become legal does not necessarily follow, as its equal protection argument doesn't have to do with being the right or wrong sex, as such, but which ordinal number describes a person. None of the difference between straight and gay marriage has to do with the civil rights of the second simultaneous spouse; it's a different subject altogether.

    Additionally, amid the spectacle of sexual violence American conservatives have voted into office, it is the supremacist definition that requires the issues be part of the same subject. And here is one: Over the course of twenty-five years (1992-2017), at least—and continuing, though I haven't tracked the latest iterations—is a condemning comparison by which the Christianist refuses to acknowledge the role of consent in sexual relations. Ordinarily, when I point to the '92 election and Romer v. Evans, I'm referring to the political subset that raised its progeny on the tacit idea that nothing they want should be unconstitutional, and if anything they want is unconstitutional, democracy has died. But we should probably think about another aspect of the voters who came of age for the 2010 midterm election: Not only have they been trained up to a selfish standard whereby society itself is invalidated every time they are prohibited from hurting someone for the sake of personal aesthetic gratification, they've also been raised up in a cultural iteration showing extraordinary disdain for sexual consent.

    To wit, I might point out that neither corpses, dogs, nor children can properly consent to sexual intercourse, but that does nothing to dispel the Christianist insistence of fear: "then everything must be okay". This is why state attorneys general are willing to sacrifice sexual consent at altars unto idols of Christ, and why conservatives would appoint them to federal judicial benches. It becomes a curious and savage generalization: If these people cannot comprehend sexual consent, what else is wrong with what they're telling us? By the time their doomsaying achieves bestial rape fantasy↱, we really should be paying attention to the escalation.

    To circle 'round, albeit roughly: The strong selfish inclination comes by the value of the immortal soul compared to anything else; the fear of the unknown can become a fevered polarity 'twixt what is known and familiar, to the one, and everything else, to the other.

    I kind of skipped out on this part, before; when we tie that to your note that—

    —we might perceive intimations of venn overlap that are, generally speaking, implicitly expected to remain invisible. If we count up the topic post, it includes misogyny, American white supremacism traditional, American neo-Nazi, American Christianism; the common link is supremacism. It's not too hard to find, akin to a habit of revolutions usurping corruption instead of eliminating it, similar supremacist markers exchanged within ostensibly egalitarian endeavors; these populist currencies backed by ignorance are easy to spend, and easily gratifying. Consider, for instance, the difference between "freedom from religion", and, say, Bill Maher, who these days only ever really do disparagement bits, and these days, it's e'er thinner and thinner a trope. When the so-called good guys can't manage any better than their chosen opponents, we should probably notice; considering the reasons why sometimes seems appropriate, and might even be useful.

    Some overlap is easily recognized: A correlation of misogyny and ethnosupermacism is nearly inevitable. Futrelle↱ considered the point last month, after the Halle synagogue hit:

    It's not surprising to discover that this raging antisemite and apparent alt-rightist is also a rabid antifeminist, because, as Yale University philosophy professor Jason Stanley notes in his book How Fascism Works, misogyny has always been central to "the logic of fascist politics."

    Hitler and his fellow Nazis wanted women, as far as was practical, confined to the arena of "Kinder, Küche, Kirche"—that is, "children, kitchen, and church." As one Nazi ideologue put it in 1933,

    to be a woman means to be a mother … the highest calling of the National Socialist woman is not just to bear children, but consciously and out of total devotion to her role and duty as mother to raise children for her people.

    Alt-right neo-Nazi men today—and the alt-right is overwhelmingly male—similarly dream of marrying virginal tradwives who will happily stay home and raise a brood of perfect Aryan children.

    Neo-Nazis today aren't just worried about declining birth rates as a cause of what they melodramatically call "white genocide." They are also concerned with why they're falling—because women have the ability and the desire to engage in non-procreative sex, to separate female sexuality from motherhood. This is due in part to better birth control and the availability (currently being eroded) of abortion; it's also due to the sexual autonomy promoted by feminism.

    All this weakens the patriarchal family, and anything that weakens the patriarchal family is a threat to fascist ideology, itself based on a notion of political hierarchy centered around a father-like leader of the nation.

    Oh, I'm sorry, did I say "easily recognized"? That's my error; please accept my apology. Because it's true, I know someone who just doesn't seem to understand that every time he recites some soft bullshit rhetoric that, y'know, just happens to be what the people he so insists he's not say, other people notice. More directly, we're supposed to believe he's not capable of understanding the point; he simply insists. And it's true, I have accepted that he cannot. And I try to figure the place of that fact in the larger consideration.

    But he's a reactionary bigot on one, and possibly two counts (set aside the complication of that reaction attending a known counterreactionary trend), and as he thus sympathizes with certain specialized rhetoric, it apparently defies his comprehension that reciting the same tropes on behalf of white supremacism is the sort of thing people notice. Try explaining how a trope works, and he sets about an overwrought construction to denounce anyone who would suggest he is a typal supremacist defined by the impossible average that no individual fulfills. At some point, begging comes to mind, as if one could plead, "Will you please fail to fulfill type?" and eventually he will wake up and start making some sort of sense. To wit, if you use the words and arguments the bigots use in order to make the same point the bigots make for the sake complaining like the bigots in the same context the bigots do, then no, people are not stuck out in lala land if they take the moment to wonder at the appearance of that particular bigotry, but thanks for making the point.

    Oh, right. But, yeah. Y'know. As an example. Any xenophobic stereotype, sure and the example of leadership is powerful among those for whom any fucking excuse will do.
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Note on #6↑ above


    Futrelle, David. "The gunman who killed two in an attack on a German synagogue is a misogynist as well as an antisemite. Because they always are." We Hunted the Mammoth. 9 October 2019. WeHuntedTheMammoth.com. 26 October 2019. http://bit.ly/312qYL5

    (I actually thought these would be longer, but two of the links are my own, and it turns out I didn't use that one tweet, and then ... and then ....)
     

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